It used to be the opposite but because ICO's are more becoming more popular and better at advertising you are right that this is not the case anymore. If the token only lists on a low volume exchange such as Etherdelta/Waves/etc.. then yes they can often be picked up for cheaper post ICO.

In order to provide some value for ICO investors it is important to set a reasonable hard cap which Stox has done and secondly it is important to swiftly get on a large exchange. Anything smaller than Bittrex could easily result in a $30 million ICO trading cheaper.

The product is good though. I'm in REP too but event resolution times will significantly impact their ability to compete in the sport betting market. The Stox approach provides rapid resolution but with the backstop of a decentralized dispute mechanism. Their regulatory approach is also good and means STX prediction markets will probably be available in most/all jurisdictions.

If you're in the USA and want to get into the STOX ICO, this is the address to send ETH to, according to the site:

You really do not need a weeks time to reach the target,if you look at the stats now ,they have already collected 124,164.68 ETH in less than twenty four hours,which is a really big deal and i expected this to happen as there was a lot of noises behind this project and with the hard cap is just 148,000 ETH,it will be over pretty soon.